World News | Roberta McCain, John McCain's Mother, Dies at 108
Get latest articles and stories on World at LatestLY. Roberta Wright McCain, the mother of the late Sen. John McCain who used her feisty spirit to help woo voters during his 2008 presidential campaign, has died. She was 108.
Phoenix, Oct 13 (AP) Roberta Wright McCain, the mother of the late Sen. John McCain who used her feisty spirit to help woo voters during his 2008 presidential campaign, has died. She was 108.
A spokesperson for daughter-in-law Cindy McCain says Roberta McCain died on Monday. A cause of death was not immediately released.
"It is with great sadness that I announce the death of my wonderful Mother In-law, Roberta McCain,” Cindy McCain posted on Twitter. “I couldn't have asked for a better role model or a better friend.”
In a tweet, granddaughter Meghan McCain thanked her “Nana” for teaching her how to live life with “grit, conviction, intensity and love.”
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“There will never be another one like you, you will be missed every day. I wish my daughter had gotten to meet you,” said McCain, who gave birth to her first child last month.
At 96, Roberta McCain became the Republican senator's secret weapon at campaign stops as evidence that voters need not worry about her son's age — then past 70 — as he sought the presidency.
She once said her son liked to hold her up as an example of “what he hopes his lifespan will be.”
In August 2018, however, it was the mother who ended up mourning the son when John McCain died of brain cancer. Despite being slowed by a stroke, Roberta McCain attended the memorial and burial services in Washington and Maryland for the middle son she called “Johnny.”
She remained energetic and active into her 90s, traveling often with her identical twin sister Rowena, who died at age 99.
Roberta Wright was born February 7, 1912, in Muskogee, Oklahoma, where her father was a businessman whose varied, colourful enterprises included bootlegging and oil wildcatting. The family moved to Los Angeles in the mid-1920s.
Her husband commanded submarines in World War II and was second in command of the cruiser St. Paul during the Korean War. He later held key posts including the Navy's chief of congressional liaison, and died in 1981. (AP)
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